Originally published on SBC News
Clerkson joins the firm as a Strategic Advisor, leveraging his knowledge of betting and gaming gained via tenures at prominent firms including FOX Bet, The Stars Group, William Hill and SportCaller, serving as Chairman of the latter.
He will play a key role in working towards The Unit’s ambition to ‘cement’ its status as a ‘world-class service provider’ to betting and gaming companies, having been operating for five years.
“It’s a pleasure to link up with both Paddy and Rob again; we’ve had some brilliant successes together over the years,” Clerkson, who is currently a partner in global consultancy group Tekkorp Capital, remarked.
“The Unit is an exciting proposition. Ever since Grand Parade was consumed by William Hill, there has been a lack of resourcesresource for specialist sports betting and igaming design and development, with front and backend disciplines, all available in teams of anything from 4 to 40.
“Our industry knows that there’s a steep learning curve when it comes to building sports betting and gaming products, alongside working with large platforms. The Unit has the product smarts and the developer heft. I am relishing the chance to help Paddy and Rob scale this business up.”
Clerkson’s other roles has included an advisory position at speech-to-text developer Voxbet – he spoke to SBC in this capacity at Betting on Sports Europe (BOSE) 2021, explaining the company’s international outlook at the time.
In joining The Unit, Clerkson will be cooperating closely with Paddy Casey, the firm’s Co-Founder, with the duo having previously worked together at Grande Parade.
Casey in turn brings his own experience to the company – having held senior product and commercial positions at BoyleSports, Paddy Power and Gala Coral Group – which focuses on sport, casino, free-to-play and gamification platforms.
Lastly, Egan has been appointed as The Unit’s new Business Development Director, having previously worked with Clerkson at SportCaller, and after the firm was acquired by Bally’s Interactive became the new parent company’s Head of Free-to-Play North American.
Egan was a colleague of Clerkson’s during his time at SportCaller, where Egan worked across a series of progressively responsible positions, culminating at Business Development Director. This was followed by a stint as Head of Free-to-Play North America for Bally’s Interactive after the US powerhouse acquired SportCaller in 2021.
Egan remarked: “With any supplier, it’s important to have a strong and experienced team to deliver quality products at scale, on time and add value. The Unit have that team and have been offering some of the best software in the gaming space, so this was an opportunity I could not turn down.
“They’ve already built up a strong track record over the past five years of operation and are the best-kept secret in the space, to my mind. Of course, I now look forward to changing that in my biz dev capacity, helping The Unit on their way to sustained growth.”
As The Unit moves ahead with its aforementioned objective of solidifying its global leadership position in betting and gaming marketing, the group has accrued a broad list of clients.
This includes FTP and gamification developer Low6; risk management, trading and pricing provider 10star; and PlayStar Casino, with its core areas of focus being product development, innovation and MarTech integration.
Paddy Casey commented: “I am thrilled to add two such senior and successful industry executives to our team. Andy built a terrific business in exactly the space The Unit is in and I had the good fortune to work with him there at Grand Parade and witness the incredible growth.
“Rob was instrumental in building SportCaller, the most successful free-to-play gaming company in the industry. Both have worked with global operators for many years, and I’m certain their eclectic know-how will allow us to continue to be industry leaders in product, both innovation and development, as well as MarTech, as we grow our worldwide footprint into new territories.”
